Afraid to Fall in Love - A Jaden Yuki Oneshot
by rizanicole
Summary: I wrote yet another Jaden Yuki one shot for Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. I hope you like it! Please review and let me know what you think! **Originally published on Quizilla 7/19/2012**


_Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Bee-_

I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock for what must have been the tenth time that day with a groan. I'd been up until four in the morning the previous night trying to catch up on some homework, so today wasn't looking so good right now.

"Come on, Mira," my best friend, Alexis, urged. Since I'm a Slifer and she's an Obelisk, we usually wouldn't be in the same dorm, but she'd slept over last night so we could work on a project for Crowler's class.

"Seriously, Mira. Class starts in ten minutes!" She grabbed my arm that was lazily draped over the side of the bed and tried to pull me up.

"Okay, okay," I said, rubbing my eyes with my free hand as I gave in to her demands and let her drag me out of the bed. I got dressed and pulled my hair into a messy ponytail as quickly as I could, and we got to class just a few minutes late. Luckily, Professor Banner was feeling generous that day and didn't get mad at us.

We chose seats near the back of the room next to Jaden and Syrus, with me sitting between Jaden and Alexis.

"You girls feeling alright?" Jaden asked in an amused tone when we sat down, out of breath.

"Yeah, we're fine," I replied.

I had just heard Professor Banner start talking about Duel Alchemy, and after that, the class seemed to pass by pretty quickly - probably because I fell asleep about five minutes in.

I woke up when I felt someone shaking my shoulder. "Come on, Mira." It was Jaden. "It's time for the next class."

I reluctantly stood up with a yawn and walked with my friends out of the room and towards our next class. Jaden fell back a little from Alexis and Syrus to walk beside me in the crowded hallway.

"So, what's got you so sleepy? I mean, you're usually the one waking me up," he said playfully.

I couldn't help but laugh a little at his joke, even though I felt I would collapse from exhaustion any minute now. "I stayed up until four doing homework." I explained. "I guess I shouldn't have procrastinated."

Jaden grinned and pointed to himself with his thumb. "You should just do what I do and not worry about doing the homework at all!"

I shook my head at him, but smiled nonetheless. He always managed to make me feel a little better, even when I was having a bad day. I couldn't deny that I had a crush on the guy, but since I hadn't had the best luck with love in the past, I had no intention of telling him about my feelings.

"That's not really my style," I replied after a moment, bringing myself back to the present. "But thanks for the advice."

Once the day's classes were finally over, I had a supper of fried shrimp in the Slifer mess hall with Jaden and Syrus, and then headed back to my room for the night.

But when I got there, I found that I wouldn't be getting sleep any time soon, because as soon as I opened the door, I saw Atticus Rhodes standing in my room, looking at the pictures I'd set out on my desk.

I sighed. We were friends, and this certainly wasn't the first time he'd come into my room without me here. It normally didn't bother me, but this time I was sort of annoyed since I wanted to sleep. "What do you want, Atticus?" I asked, coming across a bit more irritably than I had intended.

He turned around in slight surprise, not seeming to have heard me open the door. "Oh, hey, Mira," he said with a grin, raising a hand in greeting.

"Hey," I said, closing the door behind me. "What's up?"

"Well," he began, sounding way too cheery for me at the moment, "I noticed something going on, and I thought you could use a little help making your dreams a reality."

I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, willing myself not to kick my friend out of my room. "What the heck are you talking about, Atticus?"

"Why, I'm talking about your love life."

I woke up a bit at that statement and raised my eyebrows, wondering where he intended to go with this. "You mean my nonexistent love life."

"Well, yes," he said, trying to figure out how to phrase what he wanted to say. "For the moment, at least. But not for long, 'cause I know who you _liiiiike_!" he said in a rather childish, sing-songy way.

I pulled the poker face I kept in reserve for such occasions, suppressed a slight blush, and looked at him blankly. I was pretty good at hiding my emotions, so I doubted that he actually knew what he was talking about. "I don't like anyone, Atticus."

He got a mischievous look on his face. "Oh, yes you do! I can see you trying to hide behind your serious face, but it won't work! I know you've got a crush on... Jaden Yuki!"

At that, I was surprised enough to let my serious expression slip. "W-what?"

"No denial, eh? Now I know I'm right. Just go ahead and admit it." He said, sounding very confident.

I crossed the room to go sit down on my bed. "Fine, you're right," I muttered. "Was it really that obvious?"

"No, it was only obvious to someone experienced in the ways of love, such as myself." he said, placing a hand on his chest in a mock-arrogant manner. "But either way, you have no worries! Because I'm here to help you get together with Jaden."

At that moment, I got a horrible feeling of dread in my stomach and stood up to face Atticus. "You know you can't do that, Atticus." I said, a bit angry. The truth is, I'd completely given up on love after several of my relationships ended in disaster. I'd tried to suppress my feelings for Jaden, but it hadn't really worked. Even so though, I had no intention of trying to get a date with him or anything like that. Falling in love had done nothing but hurt me in the past, which was why I had no intention of letting it happen again.

What upset me the most in this situation, though, was that Atticus knew all of this, so he knew I would never approve of his suggestion. Although not many people knew about my past relationships, Atticus was my best guy friend, so he'd seen first hand how hurt I had been when the others had betrayed me. How could he be so blind as to suggest I set myself up for that pain again?

Atticus sighed, and looked at me with an uncharacteristically serious expression. "Look, Mira, I know you're nervous. But I really think Jaden's a good guy. He wouldn't do anything to hurt you."

I nodded bitterly. "Seems like it, huh? But I thought the same thing about Drake and Aaron, and look where that got me."

Atticus sighed again, placing a hand gently on my upper arm as he tried to comfort me. "I'm not going to do anything if you don't want me to, Mira. But if you do decide you want my help, just know I'll be here for you." With that, he turned away from me, crossed the small dorm room, and opened the door to leave.

"I'm not going to change my mind, Atticus," I said firmly as he walked out. Though he must have heard me, he didn't reply. He closed the door behind himself and was gone.

After I'd brushed my teeth and gotten ready for bed, I lay awake for a long time that night. Even though all I could think about all day was sleep, it escaped me now that I was finally about to get it. I sighed, rolling onto my side as I turned over what Atticus had said in my mind. I really did like Jaden; there was no point in denying it to myself. But at the same time, I didn't want to take the risk of being hurt again and lose one of my friends in the process.

'It doesn't matter either way,' I finally thought to myself. 'He'd never like me back anyways, so there's really no issue at all.' With that last thought, I was finally able to go to sleep.

The next day, Alexis, Atticus, Jaden, Syrus, Chazz and I were all hanging out at the beach. Alexis and I were sitting on our towels talking about random topics, while we watched Atticus try to teach the rest of the guys how to surf. Unfortunately, the three pupils didn't seem to have the knack for the sport that their teacher did.

"I have a feeling this is going to end badly," Alexis said, as the two of us watched Chazz try (and fail) to balance on the surfboard.

I nodded in agreement. "I think you're right," I said to Alexis. "Hey you guys, be careful out there!" I yelled at the four guys in the ocean.

"Don't worry about us, Mira! We'll be just fine!" Jaden shouted back to us, as Syrus took a turn trying to climb onto the board.

Alexis and I shook our heads and returned to our conversation. Just when I had begun to forget about the guys, I heard someone yell and turned my attention back to the water, Alexis following my gaze. 'What happened?' I wondered. A moment later, Chazz and Atticus were walking back to shore with one of Jaden's arms over each of their shoulders. Syrus followed behind them, a fearful look on his face.

Alexis and I immediately got up and ran over to our friends. "What happened, you guys?" Alexis asked worriedly as I noticed the pained look on Jaden's face and his oddly-bent leg.

"He fell off the board and got hurt." Atticus explained. "I think he might've broken his leg. We need to get him to the nurse."

The two of us nodded in agreement. I was worried about Jaden, and knew everyone else must have felt the same way. To make things easier, Atticus shifted his hold on Jaden so he was laying across his arms and wouldn't have to walk on his own at all. As he headed off in the direction of the nurse's office, the remaining four of us trailed behind him.

We reached the office about five minutes later, where Atticus carefully laid Jaden down on a bed so he could be examined. After asking our little group what had happened, the nurse checked Jaden's condition and came to the same conclusion Atticus had.

"You were right," Miss Fontaine said to him. "He has a broken leg. He'll probably need to stay here for a few days since it's a pretty bad break, but he'll definitely make a full recovery."

There was a group sigh of relief at this news. "Thanks, Miss Fontaine," Syrus said.

"No problem," she replied. "But I do need to get his leg set and bandaged up, which could take a while. You guys can come back to visit in a couple of hours, though."

I walked over to Jaden's bed so I was standing right next to him. "We'll see you soon, Jay," I said with a small smile, picking up his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. "Get well soon, okay?"

Jaden nodded, forcing a smile since he was clearly still in pain. "I'll do my best." Turning his attention to everyone else, he said, "See you guys later!"

After we had all left the hospital and walked back outside, Syrus suddenly spoke, breaking the silence. "I think we should set up a schedule while Jaden's in the hospital so one of us will always be there with him. We all know how short his attention span is, and he might die of boredom if we leave him in there alone."

"That's a great idea, Syrus," Alexis said with a smile. "C'mon, we can all go back to my dorm and work out a schedule."

After we'd gotten to Alexis's room, each of us picked a two-hour period that we could spend with Jaden each day. I ended up with the latest shift, from nine to eleven at night. After a few hours had passed, Alexis reminded the rest of us that we could go back and see Jaden, so we decided to go tell him about our plan.

"This sounds sweet, you guys!" he said with a smile. Jaden was now propped up in a bed, a huge cast around his left leg. He seemed to be feeling better than when we had left him earlier, which I was glad to see. "Thanks for keeping me company!"

We all hung around for a while that day, since no one had any other plans. And even though we were in a hospital, we had a pretty good time talking and laughing until Miss Fontaine kicked all of us, excluding Jaden, out for the night.

Four days later, I was walking over to the school's hospital to take my turn keeping Jaden company. He was supposed to already be out of the hospital at this point, but he was taking longer to heal than Miss Fontaine had originally predicted. After his second night in the hospital, she told us all that she didn't think it would be safe for him to walk on his own yet, because he might just make his injury worse.

Not that I minded at all, of course. I liked spending time with Jaden alone. We'd always been friends, but at this point we had gotten to know each other even better than before. After seeing more sides of his personality, I liked him more than ever now, but I still had no intention of trying to get the two of us together. 'He's a nice guy,' I mused on my way to see him. 'But that doesn't mean he couldn't break my heart.'

I quietly opened the door of the hospital and peeked around the edge of it, making sure there were no other patients sleeping before I started talking to Jaden. But as usual, he was the only one in the room.

"Hey, Mira!" he said cheerfully with a wave when he saw me standing in the doorway. "What're you waiting for? Come on over!"

I smiled at his eternally-happy mood and went over to sit in the chair next to his bed. "Hey, Jaden. Has anything exciting happened since I was here last?"

He laughed. "Not really." He paused and looked around the room, then leaned up so he could whisper something into my ear. When he spoke, he was close enough that I could feel his warm breath on my skin. "I did hear Miss Fontaine arguing with her boyfriend on the phone, though. I hope she doesn't decide to take it out on me."

I laughed lightly at his comment as I leaned away. I knew it was foolish, but I couldn't help getting butterflies in my stomach when he was that close to me.

"Anyways, that's it for news on this place. What's going on in the outside world?"

"Not too much," I said, tapping my finger against my lips as I tried to recall any interesting tidbits of information. "Crowler yelled at one of the other Slifers today for about five minutes straight - it was really quite impressive - but other than that, nothing much happened today."

Jaden nodded. We talked for a while about random things, like how Syrus and Zane were getting along, and then we had a duel. Unfortunately, it wasn't as exciting as usual, since we could only use the cards and had no duel discs.

At one point during the match, I noticed Jaden trying frustratedly to flick an unruly piece of hair out of his eyes, but he wasn't having much luck. Since he was too intent on the game to put down his hand of cards and use his fingers to move it, I sighed and put my own hand down. Reaching across the small table of cards to him, I used a few fingers to brush the hair out of his face, letting my hand linger a little longer than I probably should have before pulling it away.

"There. Better?" I asked with a slight blush, unable to stop thinking about how soft his hair had been. He looked a little surprised at my action, since he had been so focused on the game, but smiled anyways. "Yeah, it is. Thanks, Mira."

I nodded in response. "No problem." I hoped he wouldn't think anything of my accidental affectionate touch, but he seemed sort of distracted for the rest of the duel.

After we were finished and Jaden had won, he put down his remaining cards and looked at me with a quizzical expression, which I didn't see him use much. It looked like he was trying to figure something out.

"What is it, Jay?" I asked, feeling slightly self-conscious under his gaze.

His expression softened. "Mira, there's something I need to tell you," he said slowly.

I got a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, but tried not to let it show in my voice. "Okay, what is it?"

"Mira, I really like you."

I was silent, taken aback by his confession. Even though a part of me wanted Jaden to like me, another, bigger part was telling me that this was all a bad idea.

"Jaden," I began after a moment with a sigh, "I'm just not ready for a relationship right now. I'm sorry, but I don't think it would work out." I turned my face away from him, unable to meet his gaze. I felt ashamed of myself for being such a coward, unwilling to take a chance on love again.

"Look, Mira," Jaden said in a soft voice. "I heard from Atticus that you've had some bad relationships in the past, but if you'll give me a chance, I promise that I would never hurt you. What do you say?"

I looked into his kind eyes for just a moment before returning my gaze to the floor. The look in his eyes seemed to say that he wanted nothing more than to make me happy. He reached up to caress my cheek with one of his hands, and I involuntarily leaned into his touch with a small sigh. I was about to give in, when I forced myself to remember that I've been betrayed by guys who pretend to care and act that way before. As much as I wanted to accept Jaden's offer, I was too afraid.

I pulled my face away from him warm hand. "No," I said quietly, hardly believing that I was letting this opportunity get away from me. "I'm sorry, Jaden. But I can't."

With that statement, I got up and started to walk away, not wanting him to see me cry. "Mira, wait!" he called. But I didn't turn back, knowing that he was in no shape to follow me. I eventually made it back through the darkness outside to my dorm room, and fell into a restless sleep.

The next day was a Saturday, and I was sitting in the Slifer mess hall with my lunch while I waited for Alexis, Syrus, Chazz, and Atticus to come and join me. There was no way I was going back to see Jaden tonight, so I needed to come up with an excuse so someone else would cover my shift.

Syrus, who had the earliest shift, was the first to sit down next to me. He had a concerned look on his face. "Hey, Mira, I don't know what this is about, but Jaden said that he needed to talk to you and that it's really important. He wanted me to tell you he really wants you to come to the hospital as soon as possible."

I simply nodded in response. I could tell Syrus wanted an explanation, to know what was going on between Jaden and I, but I wasn't exactly in the mood to tell the story.

Once the other guys and Alexis had sat down, I decided it was time to see if I could get out of my shift tonight. "You guys," I said to them, rubbing one of my temples for dramatic effect, "I'm not feeling so good today. Is there any way one of you could take over my shift with Jaden tonight?"

"Sure, Mira." Alexis said brightly. "I'll take care of it."

I smile gratefully at her, feeling relieved I'd be able to avoid facing him for now. "Thanks."

She nodded and smiled back. "No problem."

After lunch, I somehow managed to avoid my friends for the rest of the day. I had dinner with another friend in the Ra Yellow dorm where they wouldn't find me, but I was bombarded by questions and accusations the next day when they all showed up in my dorm room.

"What's wrong with Jaden, Mira?"

"You've got to go see him. He was practically begging me yesterday to bring you there."

"Look, we know you're not sick now, and you can't just keep avoiding him."

"We know something's going on with the two of you."

"He was really upset yesterday, but he won't tell any of us what happened."

"Yeah, Mira. What'd you do to the guy?"

"Guys!" I broke in, frustrated by their statements and actions. "I'm really not in the mood to talk about this, okay? This whole thing is just getting ridiculous." Honestly, every time one of them mentioned Jaden, it made me feel guilty about hurting him and pathetic for being so afraid to accept his offer. But to my friends, I tried to hide behind a facade.

"Could you just go talk to him? We'd leave you alone if you did." Chazz said, clearly tired of arguing with me.

"No. Now if you guys don't mind, I'd really like to be alone right now." With that last statement, I ushered them out of my room.

I closed the door behind them and stood with my back to it, sliding down to sit on the floor. 'Well, this is great.' I thought to myself. Now in addition to hurting Jaden, I'd managed to alienate the rest of my friends, too.

The next day, I had to pass by the nurse's office to get to one of my classes. Even though I knew Jaden couldn't walk yet, I still moved past the door quickly. I thought for a second that I was in the clear, but when I was just a few steps past the door, it suddenly opened.

I turned around and there was Jaden, stepping out of the hospital for the first time since he was injured. He was supported by a pair of wobbly crutches and his leg was all bandaged up, but he was walking on his own. When I saw him, my heart leapt in my chest.

He didn't seem to notice me at first since he was concentrating on not falling down, but when he did, his face lit up in surprise. "Mira! I've been wanting to talk to you for days!"

Being the coward that I was, I didn't stick around to speak with my injured friend. Instead, I ran out of the building. I heard him calling behind me, but didn't care. In my mind, this just couldn't happen. 'I hadn't known he was getting out of the hospital today!' I thought in frustration as I hurried across Duel Academy's lawn.

When I thought I heard something behind me, I turned and saw Jaden trying to catch up with me. I hadn't expected him to be able to follow me all the way out here.

"Wait up, Mira!" he called.

When I saw how winded he was, I got worried that he might fall and hurt himself again. It looked like he could hardly hold himself up. I hesitated for a moment, but eventually gave up on getting away and moved back to help him, putting one of his arms over my shoulders. Neither of us spoke a word as we moved to sit down on a bench next to each other.

After a few minutes had passed and Jaden's breathing had slowed, he began to speak. "Mira, I'm sorry for upsetting you the other day."

I looked at him in surprise. He was sorry for upsetting _me_? "I'm the one who ran out and who's been hiding from you, Jaden." I said. "If anyone's going to apologize, it should be me."

He was silent for a moment, then said, "Mira, if you don't like me in that way then that's fine. But I wouldn't want you to shy away from something like this out of fear." His voice was soft, like he was afraid of driving me away again.

"To be honest, I do like you, Jaden," I said in a quiet voice. If nothing else, he at least had a right to know the truth.

With some difficulty, he scooted a little closer to me on the bench. "Then please, Mira. Give me a chance." I looked into his eyes to see an odd mix of sincerity and desperation.

He must have seen it in my eyes that I still wasn't entirely convinced, because he next wrapped his arms around my waist. "Please. I swear I'd never do anything to hurt you."

I was afraid. Afraid that he'd get tired of me and leave me for someone else. Afraid that this was just some cruel joke, and a minute later he'd tell me it was all a lie. But most of all, as I sat there with his arms around me at that moment, I was afraid that I'd already fallen in love with this guy.

The damage was done. He'd already gained a hold over me, whether I wanted him to or not. But when I looked into his eyes again, I realized that it might not be such a bad thing after all. His eyes were sincere, and his face showed that he was anxious for me to give him an answer already. " _Please_ ," he said again.

I tentatively reached a hand up towards his face, brushing away a hair that had fallen into his eyes. But this time, instead of taking my hand away, I moved it to rest on the side of his face.

"Okay," I said at last with a small smile, hardly believing the words that were coming out of my own mouth. "I'll give this a chance."

"Thank you," he said in relief, reaching his hand up to my cheek in a mirror of what I was doing. He slowly leaned his face forward, giving me plenty of time to back out if I wanted to, but I didn't want to pull away from him anymore. I leaned forward the rest of the way, and our lips met in a kiss.

It was slow and soft, and it seemed as if Jaden was trying to pour all of his sincerity and care into that one moment. I knew right then that I'd made the right choice to trust him. This was someone who honestly cared about me, and would never hurt me if he could help it.

We both pulled back after a moment, ending the kiss. I smiled up at Jaden, fully letting the happiness I'd been afraid to let out take over. He grinned back at me, wrapping his arms around me tighter.

"I finally gotcha," he said, leaning down to kiss my forehead quickly.

"I'm glad," I said back, looking into his eyes. "I love you, Jaden."

He looked shocked for a second, but then looked extremely happy. "I love you too, Mira. I was just afraid to say it before because I didn't want to scare you away."

I smiled at him. "Well, I'm not scared anymore. You've helped me finally get over my fear of falling in love."

And as I sat there close to him with his arms wrapped around me, I knew this was something that I never wanted to end.


End file.
